


Grateful dead

by afterearth



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Soldiers, Dealing With Loss, F/M, Gen, Grief, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, assorted canon characters - Freeform, canon with kotor 1 and 2, culture clash, jedi order critical, old republic critical, taking some liberties with canon from the clone wars series, themes of depression and ptsd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25818133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterearth/pseuds/afterearth
Summary: Frozen in carbonite in 19 BBY during the defense against the Separatist invasion of Lokori, you managed to dodge the worst outcome of the infamous Order 66, but you awaken alone, weakened, and captive to bounty hunters who bring you to their client on Nevarro.These are strange times when a Mandalorian comes to the aid of a jedi prisoner. But the galaxy has changed since you were last awake.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Comments: 19
Kudos: 146





	1. wake up

Lokori was burning. Droids marched, cannon fire boomed, blaster fire arced overhead, but there was silence from your troops over comm. They weren’t answering. 

Something was wrong. 

Something - something echoed in the Force and you felt it quake within you. Something rose from the gloom like a monster hiding in plain sight. 

You turned - you turned - you turned - but you were moving so slowly, as if caught in a mire, sinking with no bottom in sight. Commander Reaper was throwing his bucket to the side, yelling something at you. His blaster rifle was pointed at you. He kept screaming your name. So garbled. 

Your side hurt. Burned. You’d been shot. Where had it come from? Reaper was weeping, shaking his head, caught in a storm of grief and rage -  _ why _ ? What had happened? 

With a violent burst of speed, he shoved you back and you went, only barely registering the pain from the shot. Something hissed behind you angrily, then it was cold, so cold it burned and you opened your mouth to scream but there was nothing. 

You were nothing. You were no more. 

…

You heard nothing, saw nothing, but sensation prickled your skin. It hurt,  _ Force  _ it hurt so badly. You made a sound, at least you assumed you did, but your throat rebelled against the action and you gagged, coughing when there was no moisture in your throat to ease the discomfort. You were hyper aware of your clothes sticking to your skin, rubbing and chafing. It felt like layers of your skin were peeling off. 

You fell, spun, landed on your side and thought you barked out a noise of pain. You still heard nothing. It felt like your ears were waterlogged. You couldn’t hear your blood, or the beat of your heart, but you thought you could hear a tinny pitch like the echo of a shriek over a recorder. 

Lokori. Lokori. You were on  _ Lokori  _ \- Force you were in the middle of a battlefield, get up, get up,  _ get up _ . What happened, why couldn’t you see? Why couldn’t you hear? A grenade? Flashbang? Sonic? A plasma flare? Some new forsaken weapon the Separatist army unleashed? 

You reached out to the Force, calming yourself from your position on the ground and you felt - you felt nothing. You reached for your troopers. Nothing. You reached for life, the churn of it around you. Nothing. 

Dawning horror had a taste like ice water and rusted metal. You couldn’t feel the Force. You couldn’t feel anything. 

Even if you made no sound, you still screamed and screamed. 

A blow to the face whipped you to the side. Hands felt along your shoulders, your waist, arms. They lifted you onto unsteady legs that locked and buckled beneath your weight. Hands shoved at your back, presumably to force you to walk, but you couldn’t. You stumbled, caught yourself, and then your ankle twisted and you went down hard on your hip. 

Hands, firm, but gentler than the first set lifted you up and held on. Something prodded into your back. The tip of a blaster, maybe. 

You walked, numb. Your skin still itched and burned, you still had no sight, you still heard nothing, and the Force was dead to you. Or you were dead to it. Some unliving thing. No more than a droid made of flesh. What had happened to you? What had become of your men? The planet? The hands that held you didn’t feel like a droid’s. Panic crested and waxed in you. Awash in fear and doubt, you recited the Code, yearning for the familiar. 

_ There is no emotion, there is peace.  _

_ There is no death, there is the Force.  _

Was there still no death if you couldn’t feel the Force? 

You could still smell, you realized. Water and green things, the ancient taste of earth and rock. Your captors, as that was the most appropriate word to describe them, smelled of oil, the acrid odor of recently fired blasters, leather, and sweat. 

You clung to these smells. They made up your world for the moment. Or forever, you had no way of knowing how you’d sustained these injuries. Your side hurt, twinged with every movement. Beneath your boots, the softer dirt gave way to something hard. Metal? Or rock? 

The surface was unnaturally smooth, so you assumed it was metal. Had to be. A steep incline that moved lower slowly - a ramp? To a ship, perhaps? Were these Republic officers doing a mop-up and they had no way to identify you, wounded as you were? You patted your hip awkwardly. Your lightsaber wasn’t there. Your troops had either fallen or gone on without you, assuming you were dead, or had hidden your injured body from the direct firefight in hopes you’d heal yourself. 

Your fist was unable to clench shut. You couldn’t feel your injuries through the Force. The Force was just  _ gone _ . 

You held back the answering bile that rose and hung your head. If these were Republic officers, they would take you back to the temple, to the healers. There would be some way to correct this -  _ this _ . This was not permanent. If you lost your sight and hearing, so be it. There were other ways with which to perceive the galaxy. The Force - but to lose that would mean - it would be the end of you. You were a  _ jedi _ . What was a jedi without the Force? And what were you if you weren’t a jedi?

A vibration rumbled beneath your feet. You were right. A ship. The hands guided you to a seat and you sat awkwardly, limbs stiff and uncooperative. Something was pushed into your hands and you tried to hold it. A cylinder. The hands guided it to your mouth - water. They were giving you water. You drank sloppily, felt it spill on your chin. 

Your skin hurt less. You had hope it meant that your body was focusing its strength on healing you, that perhaps you couldn’t use the Force as a direct result. 

The hands took the cup away, buckled you in - and your hands were cuffed to the sides. 

Oh. 

Perhaps your first guess had been right. Captors. Bounty hunters? What bounty hunters preferred their prey alive? You’d only known them to kill for credits. 

Your shirt was lifted away, and you jerked on the spot, but a hand wrapped around your neck, squeezing. You stilled. Something spritzed your side, fabric laid on top, smoothed over. Bacta. They’d treated your side injury from when - when you got shot? Had you been shot? You had, hadn’t you? 

The shirt was tucked back into the waistband of your trousers. 

The hand on your neck stayed for a moment, lingering, you could feel it shaking. The kind of bobbing motion that comes from laughter. They were laughing at something. You, maybe. Helpless as a loth-kitten with none of the fangs or claws. 

Something pierced your shoulder and you gasped, arched, and then it was removed. Your ears buzzed then. Pressure welled behind your eyes, your nasal cavity, your ears, your temples - and with a great pop, sound returned. You flinched from the voice right at your ear. 

“Awake are you?” a deep voice taunted. “Can you hear me?” they whispered, rasping something scratchy over your ear. Facial stubble? Lips at your ear tugged at your earlobe abruptly and licked you. You flinched away, feeling sluggish again. They laughed. 

“Stop it,” a falsetto voice scolded. “I just patched the jedi up. I don’t want you ruining my work because you've got breath that can knock out a bantha.” 

“Just a bit of fun. Not often we have a  _ myth  _ on board.” A finger stroked your brow. Your hair, twisting it. “Pretty, too.” 

“Don’t you dare. The jedi belongs to the client, we can’t go handing in a damaged product. They paid for a living, healthy creature. The jedi is barely alive now.” A frustrated sigh. "We'll have to do intravenous nutrition for the time being just to make sure the jedi's healthy before we make the delivery."

The world began to close around you again. Slowly. You were exhausted. 

“Ah there you go little jedi. Go to sleep now, hum? Make this easy on us,” the voice cooed. “Get the IV tap. We’ll start on fluids and proteins…” 

“Need hibernation...eyes…” 

“Nevarro...be there in...time.” 

“...hope so…”

You slept, giving up the ghost. 

…

Your captors rotated your care. Often the one with the higher voice was your caregiver. The other one called her Tien. She was brusque in her care, impersonal as cleaning a stranger’s blaster. Sight returned slowly. Light perception first. And then more. Movement. Shadow. Colors. Your vision had more or less returned to you whole. Your side was no longer injured. 

You still couldn’t feel the Force. 

The man, Robam, cared for you far less which you were grateful for. He liked to taunt you whenever he could. Your voice had returned before your sight, and you’d asked about the war. He’d laughed and told you not to worry your pretty little head about it. When you had pushed for details, he’d shoved you down on your cot and cuffed you. He offered to give you as many details as you wanted while his body stretched over yours, pressed down on your aches. 

Tien had shoved him off, snapping at him not to damage the goods. They’d only be paid full price if you came back in good health. Tien had similarly given you no information. 

You had accepted very early on in the first week of travel that your captors were bounty hunters, likely paid for by the Separatists. Perhaps Count Dooku was attempting to pad his ranks with Force-sensitives since his droid army was turning out to be so costly. You weren't famous enough to be held ransom. This was likely just a plot to turn you, something the Council had cautioned the knights about. 

The day you landed on your destination, Nevarro, Tien had helpfully supplied, you didn’t recognize the name as a holdfast for the Confederacy. You were in binders, wrists and ankles bound, and led through a town on the arid planet. Vendor stalls boasted food, clothes, miscellaneous items, ship parts some of which you recognized and others that were completely alien to you. 

You saw droids and immediately stiffened, reaching out to the Code for comfort that was coming to you ever more reluctantly. None of the droids were battle droids, no guard or sentries. Just protocol droids. The newer line of them too, but somehow these were old. Rusted and poorly maintained. 

Robam knocked on a door, showed a chit to a gatekeeper droid, and the door slid open to - troopers. Your brows drew together in confusion. Not clone troopers. The armor was similar, very similar, but the helmets were different. Wide jaws, no short dorsal fin on top, nothing harkening to Jango Fett’s Mandalorian roots. The armor on these soldiers was soiled, smeared in dirt and grease, ash and blood. Your troopers had never allowed their armor to remain dirty unless they were in active combat. 

“Is that the package?” a trooper asked, hefting a blaster rifle at you. 

“This is it,” Robam confirmed, waving a hand at you. 

You were pushed forward by Tien and the soldier took hold of the leash in front of your binders, yanking you behind them. “Let’s go.” 

You were escorted, ungently, to a larger room where more soldiers in that uncanny armor waited. A man in a lavish robe with trimming greeted you. “You both came highly recommended for a reason, I see. It’s so difficult to find word of excellent service that is true. I’m glad in this case it was warranted.” He watched you carefully, like a visitor might an exotic animal found only in the Outer Rim. “Dr. Pershing, if you please.” 

A lean man with a nervous demeanor shuffled in from a side door. He wore a crisp uniform, round eyeglasses, polished boots. A patch on his left shoulder looked familiar but you were unable to immediately place it. 

He held a medical scanner and scuttled to you, some queer eagerness manifested in him abruptly. “ _ Oh _ ,” he breathed. “Oh my. Look at you, look at you.” The scanner was lifted to your still sensitive eyes, making you squint and look away briefly, and it ran down to your chest. “Calculating...healthy. Perfectly healthy, in prime condition.” He looked at Tien and Robam. “You’ve done remarkably well.” 

Robam gave an unpleasant smile. “Lucky the jedi was beneath ship rubble and some overgrowth. Perfectly hidden away.” 

“Did anything happen on your journey? Anything  _ unusual _ ?” the elderly man asked, eyes narrow. 

Robam shook his head. “Nothing. It was easy once we found the location.” 

“Hm. As agreed upon,” the elderly man said and gestured to the soldiers. Two soldiers carrying a chest stopped in front of Robam and Tien, opening it. “Six camtono’s worth of kolto. I’ve heard it can be difficult recreating it without the fauna on Manaan. It will be interesting to see it compete with bacta on the market.”

Tien gave a short nod. 

“Cheaper alternative to bacta,” Robam said. “We know a few Selkath interested in making a comeback in the economy.” 

“Cheaper and less effective,” the elderly man droned. “It would be easier to dodge regulations, I imagine. I wish you luck.” 

Tien and Robam left, the chest following them on a hoverlift, and you were left with the room staring at you. 

Dr. Pershing had turned to speak with the robed man. “I’ll begin tests right away.” 

Your scalp prickled. Tests? 

“That would be best Dr. Pershing. I am concerned that the bounty hunters found no difficulty in procuring the item. Almost as if this bounty is...perfectly normal.” 

“The identification is a complete match. Old Republic records indicated that a jedi general was rerouted to Lokori during the Separatist push and that transmission we decoded stated the general was frozen in carbonite…” Dr. Pershing explained quickly. 

Carbonite? You’d been frozen in carbonite in the middle of a battlefield? How? There - there hadn’t been any facility that had had carbonite freezers. 

There - no. 

Commander Reaper had been there...he’d been sick, or injured. You had been shot...you were on a ship. Seppie ship. You had boarded them, hadn’t you? With the intent of taking out their biggest cruiser. Rows of freezers. You had damaged them. You’d - you’d flung your lightsaber at them after the droids had herded you to them, intending to take you alive. Commander Reaper hadn't been there - no he'd been on the bridge. A crash landing. Your lightsaber crushed beneath debris. 

The troopers - where had your troopers been? Commander Reaper had found you and - and then...and then…

Your head hurt too much finally and you clutched your head, hissing. The throb behind your eyes worsened. 

The man observed you placidly, with a faint interest. “I’ve heard about the stresses of hibernation, but the longest hibernation I’ve ever heard recorded was a smuggler turned Rebel pilot named Han Solo.” He tapped a manicured nail on his desk. The troopers had kept you surrounded and it seemed they were constricting their circle around you. “You have him beat. Thirty years is a long time, I would think, to have been so removed from the galaxy and its changes. Do you find it very different, jedi?” 

“What?” you uttered, the first word upon speaking to anyone on Nevarro. Your voice was a rasp. A whisper. “What did you say?” You took an uncertain step forward. You'd heard incorrectly. 

“Thirty years ago you fought in a war that destroyed the economy of the galaxy and left many planets without leadership and in destitution. The Empire brought stability in that time, commerce and trade, old grudges were set aside for a new dawn. Do you recall your moments before you were preserved in carbonite? Were your men with you? When you and all your kind were found guilty of treason against the then Supreme Chancellor?” 

You hung on every word, hearing it and comprehending none of it. “I don’t understand - we - the jedi serve the Republic. We wouldn’t turn on it.” You served the Code too, how could that have changed? What happened? “My men -”

“Your Order was found guilty of treasonous actions for personal gain at the cost of the galaxy. The clone troopers, the predecessors of the stormtroopers,” he pointed to the guard at his side, “defended what crumbling remains of governance existed before the Empire. True loyalty,” he mused, “is still so rare.” 

You swayed in place and Dr. Pershing fumbling with a datapad. “Do you remember the moments when Order 66 had been executed?” 

You turned to him. “What is Order 66? I don’t understand.” There was too much information, too little comprehension. 

Treason? Against the Republic - the clone troopers had saved what remained of the Republic  _ from  _ the jedi? There had always been some delicate line between resentment and awe towards the jedi that had worsened during the Clone Wars, but to be accused of wholesale treason? To be found  _ guilty  _ of it? The jedi had been reluctant participants of the war, shaped and molded in the way that all wars shaped and molded those who burned through their crucibles. 

Dr. Pershing looked sheepish. “Order 66 was a set of contingency orders given to the Commander troopers during the jedi coup. It was...um…”

“Orders to execute all jedi on the grounds of sedition,” the elderly man said. “I find it curious that you survived the Clone Wars only because you were preserved and hidden. The Great Jedi Purge afterward eliminated what remained of your kind when the Order formed strike teams to attack the Empire.” 

No. No. No, no, no, no. You couldn’t be alone. You couldn’t be the last of the jedi. Your breath shortened, came to you quicker, but you pushed it down, because  _ there is no emotion there is peace _ . This was a test. A trick. A lie. One you couldn't even confirm because of your disconnection. 

“Do you remember how you came to be frozen?” Dr. Pershing asked, pressing. 

Reaper. Reaper had flung you into a wall. And then it was cold, and then nothing. 

“I remember fighting Separatist forces. The Order never even contemplated provocation against the Republic -”

“The  _ Old  _ Republic,” Dr. Pershing said. “Then there was the Empire, and now after the Second Galactic War there’s the New Republic and the Imperial Remnants.” 

The elderly man pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thank you, Dr. Pershing, but the Empire grows again. It is impossible to kill an ideal.” 

From the ashes of the Old Republic came the Empire, and now the New Republic was ushered in following the defeat of the Empire? Yet, were they truly defeated, when you were staring at their forces? 

“Am I a hostage?” you asked. It would be the first time you’d been captured during war, but you understood the pragmatic gray area it existed in. 

“No,” the man said. “We needed specimens of your kind for some time. We were fortunate indeed to have found a lost transmission still receiving in the Outer Rim. We dismissed it as a ghost transmission, leftover from the Separatist Crisis, but we were lucky.  It is very unusual that you survived in such pristine condition. But I find it strange that you haven’t tried to escape.” 

He waited, but you ignored him. 

“Did the carbonite affect your...abilities? I’ve heard it was a preferred method to confine ones such as you when possible, but I suppose such prolonged exposure to carbonite, being frozen while injured no less, could have permanent effects. Would this delay anything, Dr. Pershing?” 

Dr. Pershing lifted an IV tap. “No, sir. It should be fine. Once we have the Asset -” 

“Not here, if you please. Put the jedi under. Run your tests. See if any simulations cause any memories to return. It would be a riveting tale, I’m sure.” 

The drug took effect when the IV tap was inserted.

The Force was still dead to you, or the other way around. 

You lost your balance, falling and -

Reaper pushed you back and rushed you, hitting something on the wall. He was crying, trying not to lift his rifle again - again? Yes...yes, he’d shot you. He mouthed something, but it was lost in the freezing gases. 

_ Order to execute all jedi...the Great Jedi Purge...Reaper shouting at you. “Why, General,  _ why _?”  _

…

Days stitched together without sense and the Force remained silent. Dr. Pershing spoke to you whether you were conscious or not. Sometimes you’d wake up and he’d be in the middle of a sentence. Scanners, displays of your physiology, then psychometric tests, aptitude tests, and bastardized tests of the ones you remember vaguely from your years as a little initiate in the temple. 

Dr. Pershing was - kind, in a way. But eager. Strange. Fixated. 

He filled you in on some things. The dissolution of the Old Republic in favor of the Galactic Empire - and what a bitter tonic to swallow. The jedi had thrown themselves onto a fire for the people that later supported their genocide. The Empire that brought the galaxy to heel under one banner. Harsh punishment, harsh rule, one ruler, but trade, safety in the Inner Rim. Less so for the Outer Rim, which in its time bred more crime lords that dealt with the Empire in exchange for removing themselves from key systems and planets. 

Lord Vader. The Emperor’s Fist. Believed to have once been a jedi. It made your skin crawl. It was bad enough that the war had changed the jedi, changed  _ you _ , but to think that someone would gladly accept a position in an empire, cast aside a governing body of choice, and slaughter their own people was - it was unthinkable. 

The clone troopers, ever loyal, eventually retired and were replaced with stormtroopers. 

The Rebel Alliance. The New Republic. Those who still blamed the jedi for everything. Believed that they were complacent at best under the Supreme Chancellor turned Emperor, and at worst were the source of his choice to create an Empire. Some believed the jedi were a religious cult focused on death and had used the Code as proof. Few believed the jedi should be welcome again. The temple, a mausoleum kept as a flag of remembrance to a brutal deed. 

Every explanation was another blow.  _ There is no emotion, there is peace _ . Dr. Pershing was very disappointed you were unable to access the Force, but he was optimistic of his findings, that your knowledge and body would be key to many discoveries and sprout even more theories. 

The stormtroopers watched you. Always. 

Soon you felt nothing. Not the Force, not grief, not anger, nothing. You were a hollowed vessel left on a shelf in an abandoned home. Obsolete and forgotten, better left to stories. Some part of you railed against it. It couldn’t be true. Dr. Pershing was working for this - this Imperial Remnant in hopes of somehow bringing back a Golden Age for the Empire - so the jedi couldn’t be so hated and feared. 

But there was doubt sewn into the fabric of your being that insulated itself from any positivity. There had always existed distrust and fear of jedi. In the wake of the fall of the Old Republic, it was logical to assume that even if the New Republic opposed the Empire and the Imperial Remnant, that blame would still fall conveniently where it would. 

You were alone and forgotten. Lost. 

This would be the rest of your life. Spent in a force cage, in binders, while your body tried to heal itself, while you reached into the Force without any connection, tetherless as a ghost ship in space, while a doctor conducted a mysterious set of neverending tests. 

You never should’ve been here. You should’ve died, back then. Back when Order 66 had been issued. You should’ve died on the field with the rest of them as was intended. You had been saved by some intervention of the Force, the last of its touch you would ever feel, only to be found here as a lab experiment. 

Your listlessness worried Dr. Pershing who tried to coax you into conversation, but you couldn’t be bothered. Your body felt heavy. Your head hung low. You had no appetite. 

You missed the carbonite. At least you didn’t dream of boarding the same Separatist ship, the klaxon wailing as the ship crash landed, of Reaper tearing his bucket off. You didn’t dream at all in the carbonite. 

Dr. Pershing was absent for hours one day and you were left with only one trooper instead of the usual three and you were never given a reason why until he came back holding a tiny body in a cloth tunic. A child. 

“What - what are you doing to them?” you demanded. Old instinct reared its head, undeterred by aches and pain. A youngling. You couldn’t see what species they were, but to your knowledge no sentient being was fully grown and that small. 

Dr. Pershing laid them down on the scanning table you had once laid down on only two days prior and stepped aside. You made a noise like a gasp, an inhale, a sound of distinct wretchedness. Two large ears, a tiny face, green skin - it could’ve been Master Yoda’s child. 

The doctor smiled. “You recognize the species? Can you tell me what it is? We’ve never been able to identify it or their homeworld…” 

You could only shake your head slowly. Master Yoda’s species had all been powerful in the Force, and rare. “How…?” 

“A Mandalorian bounty hunter,” he said. “I managed to convince him to bring him in alive.” He sighed. “He’s just a child, afterall. I don’t want either of you hurt. This work is of utmost importance.” 

The child was strapped in securely - it was asleep - and the scanner overhead lowered. 

“What work?” What great monument was he building? What did it have to do with Force-sensitives, a dead or dying breed? 

Dr. Pershing focused on the scanner, on the displays to the side, on his datapad. “The only work that matters,” he murmured. “Life.” 

What? Your brows furrowed. “What are you doing to us?” you asked. You’d asked before, not expecting an answer, and hadn’t received one. Then you didn’t care what happened to you at all. You cared now, there was purpose to this - whatever your life had become in the absence of the Clone Wars, in the absence of the Order. 

Dr. Pershing was lost to his data and didn’t answer even when you raised your voice and demanded again. 

You were prepared to yell again when an explosion rocked the facility. Dr. Pershing froze and so did you. That had likely not come from the troopers. 

Blaster fire echoed outside the hall and the door was kicked in with a screech - 

A clone trooper - no. A Mandalorian in beskar armor. You inhaled. The Mandalorian that had found the child, stolen them from whatever home they had? A sudden rage gripped you, burning away what lethargy remained. Rage you hadn’t felt since the war. 

The Mandalorian shot the troopers deftly, stalked to the doctor and loomed over him. “Please, please don’t shoot! Don’t hurt them - they’re defenseless, please!” Dr. Pershing flung himself across the child and held an arm as if to shield you in your force cage. 

“What did you do to him?” he pointed at the child. 

“Nothing - nothing, I protected him. He wanted him dead -” 

The Mandalorian flung the doctor away, who cowered. Gloved, armored hands lifted the child up, free of restraints and turned them from side to side, perhaps looking for injury. 

“You’re the one that brought them here? A child you  _ stole _ ?” you spat. Rage was good. Rage was - no, no. _Th_ _ere is no passion, there is serenity_ . You breathed out. “Do you know anything about that child?” How dangerous it was to be Force-sensitive in these times? You were only recently told of the dangers of this new era and were a broken thing besides. The child, the same species as Yoda, undoubtedly had to be Force-sensitive and powerful. Dr. Pershing's vague cryptic answer made you nervous. What did they want with you both?

The Mandalorian’s helmet whipped to you. “What do you know?” he asked. 

“What do you think?” you lobbed back. 

“I think you’re a prisoner here,” he said after a moment. You both turned to the door at the sound of armored feet hitting duracrete. “And I think you want out.” 

“You can’t!” Dr. Pershing shouted from his position. “Please, you don’t understand -”

The Mandalorian pointed a blaster at the doctor’s head. “I don’t need to. I’m taking the kid.” The helmet regarded you. “I need help with the kid.” 

A savior? A savior in the form of a practicing Mandalorian saving a jedi? 

You looked at the child in the crook of his arm. A youngling. A Force-sensitive youngling that the Empire was hunting. “Let me out,” you whispered. “I’ll help the child.” 

You at least offered the courtesy as to where your loyalty stood. Bounty hunters had no loyalty. Maybe this was a brief glimpse of conscience or someone had paid him more to take the child elsewhere - you were offered the chance to protect the child from what had happened to the rest of your people and you were going to take it, even if it might be to the Mandalorian’s detriment. 

The Mandalorian nodded. “If you try anything, I will kill you.” You pursed your lips, but nodded, eyes on the child. "Let's go."


	2. dead is dead

The Mandalorian’s gunship was older, but not one old enough for you to recognize. It must have come after the Clone Wars. 

He was quiet while he piloted. 

The child was asleep in the cradle he had found during the rush to the ship. You were still not at your healthiest and your lungs burned from running at full speed, holding the child close to you while the Mandalorian fought off troopers and other bounty hunters. 

“Do you know what it is?” the Mandalorian finally asked. 

You turned to him from your seat behind him, one hand on the lip of the hovering cradle. “Do I know what  _ what  _ is?” 

“That...thing he can do.” 

You waited. “I don’t know what he did. Can you describe it?” There was a difference between lying and omitting the truth. He was your ally, for the time being. He’d risked his life to rescue the child, who he originally had captured and turned in for a bounty, and then turned on his own Guild to protect. 

Maybe your reticence was borne not only of a desire to protect the child, but envy too. His people, other Mandalorians, had poured from alleyways, descended on the unsuspecting enemies below. They’d answered a call he’d never made. From what you remembered of the Mandalorians during your time, they’d shunned armor and combat to the point of naivete, except for the few outliers of fanatics. You couldn’t remember what they were called; you had been tasked to harrying merchant ships and sabotage or infiltration most of the time, not diplomacy. 

The Mandalorians you’d witnessed emerge from the depths to protect this Mandalorian reminded you of the clone troopers. Of the jedi. Camaraderie found in a culture, in teachings, that you would never feel again. 

What had the elder said? That the jedi were religious fanatics who used smoke and mirrors and that if their powers were real, as some believed, they should never be allowed in Republic space. 

You were a dead thing caught in the waves and eddies of the Force, and a thing from a bygone era no one wanted to return to besides. You were alone in innumerable ways that tore at you to even consider let alone analyze. 

The child was your only remaining thread. A tethering cable shot out from a distant ship, flailing in cold space to your location in an attempt to save your life. His tiny wrinkled face didn’t change, still asleep from whatever sedative Dr. Pershing had given his. You’d die for this child, whatever he was, wherever he came from - as a jedi you’d once pledged to die for anyone to protect them. This felt less like a noble pursuit and more like leaning into the edge of a knife in the hope it would facilitate your prayers to a deity you didn’t believe in.

“I was fighting a mudhorn and it charged. I only had my boot knife...the kid did - he did something. He held up his hand,” the Mandalorian’s hand flexed but didn’t move from the controls. “The next thing I know, the mudhorn is floating off the ground.” 

“And then?” you urged. Your fixation on this scenario, on what you believed it might be, what it had to be, drove you to push the Mandalorian. You were unsurprised but you thirsted for this secondhand encounter. 

“You first,” he countered. 

How much could you safely tell him? The jedi were reviled, it seemed. And the history between the Order and the Mandalorians was checkered to begin with, back before the Jedi Civil War in the Old,  _ Old  _ Republic, thousands of years ago when the Order came into contact with the First Mandalorians and had been taught what  _ war  _ truly  meant.

But he already knew of the child’s abilities, at least one aspect, and still returned for him.

“Some people are born with unique abilities,” you began, finger tracing the cradle slowly. “Sometimes it’s only an individual, sometimes it’s something the entire species is gifted with.” 

“But what is it?” 

How could you explain the Force to a non-sensitive person? You had never made the rank of Master - and now never would, unfeeling and removed and alone. You knew the Force. You now knew its loss. It was, you thought wryly, a more complete understanding of its existence than any other jedi would ever know.

“People used to mistake it for sorcery, but that’s not what it is. It isn’t a trick, either. The Force binds and surrounds all living things. It’s the energy of the galaxy and some, more sensitive than others, can manipulate it.” What an insufficient explanation, but would any of the more poetic descriptions that would surely do it justice be any clearer to him? 

He finally turned to you. “Can you do it? Is that why you know about it?” 

You flinched from the question, looking away from the visor. “Yes.” You ignored the first question. You didn’t owe him that. You didn’t owe anyone that. You could’ve fashioned a misdirection but you were still raw. Raw and bleeding and you had little desire to perform a theatrical presentation for anyone.

It was a testament to his surprising grace that he looked away and didn’t ask anything further in that line of questioning. 

“Can he do anything else?” 

“Maybe, I’m not sure how sensitive he is.” You dodged the obvious answer that there are multitudes of branches of practice within the Force. Each unique and possibly terrifying, each talent an impossibility to those unable to feel and use the Force. You had once been quite good at a certain branch. It had made you successful in your missions with not only the troopers, but the commandos who worked well with your style. 

You would never do so again.

“Sensitive,” he muttered. “You said the Force. What is it? I still don’t understand.” 

You reached back, back from the time you came to be a padawan at your master’s side, finally chosen at the age of eleven. You’d once asked what the Force was, unsatisfied with the dry explanation from your general lessons. All padawans asked their masters for their definition of the Force. Each was just a little different, all complete and correct, but as unique as their perspectives. She had said it was the air all living beings breathed in, all living no matter how small, breathed in the same air; not separated by atmosphere or need or gases. The air of the living. 

Before you lost it, it was the way you would have described it. Now, in the aftermath? 

“It’s how the galaxy breathes and lives, through and in every living thing. Everything - every person, animal, plant is connected to the Force. It’s a heartbeat that travels across space and time; it’s how we know we are alive. It  _ is  _ life.” Your voice became a quiet rasp, thick in the implication of what it meant and what it would no longer  _ be  _ for you. Without the Force cage, without the lab, without Pershing, grief and fear and anger rushed to take your hand and bite into your jugular. 

And what were  _ you _ without it? 

“Hard to believe that’s what the kid feels,” he said.

“It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t sensitive,” you said. 

Conversation fell through and you weren’t sorry for it. The situation was awkward to say the least. The child continued to sleep. 

“Where’s his homeworld?” he finally asked. 

“I don’t know,” you responded quietly. No one knew where Master Yoda had been born, if he’d even been born on his homeworld at all. He’d been centuries old. Even Master Yaddle, who came from terrible beginnings, had never spoken of her origins. 

A mystery for all, perhaps even for the masters themselves. Master Yaddle hadn’t been your teacher when you’d been a youngling, but Master Yoda had. He’d been kind. Supportive. Funny, too. Yaddle, you assumed, had been similarly loved, until her untimely death before the Clone Wars. But they had been the only two of their kind. You...couldn’t ever remember seeing this child at the Temple, though. Perhaps he’d been kept elsewhere. Or perhaps his training had been different. You had been chosen by an older master who hadn’t thought to take another padawan again, until you showed talent for a similar branch of dedication.

Jedi didn’t always come into the Order kindly; the stories of children stolen by the jedi were wrong, but not completely wrong. Some children were abandoned in remote places. Some children were given freely. Others had to be taken to prevent people from harming them. 

Your eyes tracked the child. 

Or the Force-sensitive children were taken by those who wished to use them.

“Do you know what his species are called?” 

“No. I’ve only ever met one other of his kind, and he’d been very old.” 

“Is he still around?” 

_ “The Great Jedi Purge eliminated what remained of your kind…”  _

“No. No one is.” A slip, not unnoticed by your erstwhile companion who turned to regard you briefly, that fumbled its way out. 

…

The Child, still nameless as neither of you knew his name, had woken hours later, hungry and active and no worse for wear. His large dish-like ears swiveled and stared up at the Mandalorian with a trust you didn’t believe he deserved. 

At you - 

He’d wailed the first time he saw you. You, doing nothing more than setting to work on cleaning the ship and preparing clothes for the Child and yourself in spare cloths and blankets, had terrified him.

He’d started to cry and the Mandalorian had stormed up, protective and furious, demanding to know what you’d done. You hadn’t done anything, but you had your suspicions. Based on ancient holocrons and artifacts and data recordings from hundreds, thousands of years ago, there was a theory.

The answer was complex. Heartbreaking. 

The Child, as Force-sensitive as he was, likely knew what you weren’t anymore and it was frightening. Like seeing a corpse for the first time. Could he feel the hole left behind in your existence? The ragged wounds of yesteryear that had stopped bleeding but never closed? 

You kept your distance from the Child and the Mandalorian kept him close. You were offended - you would never harm him - but what you wanted didn’t even measure into any of the necessities in your newest adventure into...whatever you hoped to accomplish by being here. 

The Child came around later, peeking around an armored boot at you while you stitched together something to wear. You hadn’t done it in years, but the comfort of returning to something well practiced on your homeworld as well as a hobby during your time as a padawan and knight made up for the stitches you had to pull out and redo. 

A tiny little three fingered hand laid itself on your bare foot on the second day. You held yourself very still. The Mandalorian never turned around in his seat to either of you, but you could tell he was paying attention. What little you understood of the old Mandalorian traditions and cultures was that younglings were always coveted and fiercely protected. And you weren’t what you used to be. He would kill you. 

The tiny hand tapped. You turned and met enormous, doleful eyes. You wondered if he was reaching out physically because he couldn’t sense you in the Force as he might with anyone else. “Hello,” you whispered. It was a delicate moment. 

He hummed and kept tapping your foot, rubbing the skin under thick, blunted talons and tougher hide. His ears swiveled and he babbled at you. 

He came closer, arms hitching up at you. 

During your time as an older initiate in the temple, child care and assistance fell to you and others your age before you were chosen by your master as a padawan. Too much affection with any one of them encouraged attachment over others, possibly disregarding the greater need of those you were less inclined to. It had been one of your great teaching moments in the creche. 

You hadn’t picked up a child in years. 

Selfish attachment blinded those who sought it to the greater purpose and good of love for all because a jedi never belonged to themselves. A jedi was not the culmination of a singular, independent person - you were not formed of things of yourself alone. 

But the jedi were dead. And so were you. It made this all less real. The Code thrummed in your veins, a heartbeat slowing to its end. What comfort were the dead to the dead? 

You carefully lifted him under his little arms and sat him on your lap, bouncing a little to which he giggled. One hand touched the point of your chin. “Hello,” you repeated, soaking in that earnest innocence. 

When the Clone Wars began, you hadn’t been able to return to the temple at all. You and your troopers, as well as the commandos you would have at your command, had, per your role in the war, never really been given leave. Many jedi and clones hadn’t been. None of you had belonged to yourselves. 

The weight of the Child sunk deep in your gut like a stone. Warmth spread, cracks forming from the war, from the carbonite, from the memories and confusion, to this bright new age you didn’t belong in. 

The hand stayed on your chin and the Child never looked away, even when you consigned yourself to continue your task because -  _ There is no emotion, there is peace _ . 

The Mandalorian, Mando, watched you from behind an expressionless helmet. The troopers, never quite as Mandalorian as Jango Fett had been, had still been careful to not remove their helmets in front of those outside their battalions. 

“I think I found a place,” he commented. 

“Oh?” 

“Sorgan. Backwater planet, little to no development. Lots of farmland. A real skug-hole. It’s perfect.” 

You let yourself come alive enough to ask a strategic question. “Won’t they be able to track us?” The Child or you. Or both. 

“The fobs were turned in and as far as the Guild is concerned the bounties were retrieved. The fobs deactivate after the bounty is turned in.” 

“Can they reactivate them?” You had never associated with bounty hunters before and of the ones you recall, you had never bothered asking how their line of business was conducted. They’d usually been paid by Separatists to kill jedi. 

The helmet tilted to you but didn’t turn. “They can be, but once it’s deactivated the biometric data wipes itself from the bounty system. And that’s for targets where information is easy to find. He wasn’t. Whoever managed to tag him did it by chance.” 

“And me? Would I have been easy to find?” 

“Probably not,” he said but offered no more. 

“What do you mean by tagged?” 

For someone as seemingly reticent as he was, he was remarkably patient with the Child. And with you, it seemed. “Someone sees a person of interest they hear about on a news cycle, in a cantina, from a rumor and thinks they might be worth something so they go to a Guild or security force hoping for a finder’s fee.” He rolled one shoulder as if it ached. “It’s rarely confirmed, but when it is it’s because multiple people brought proof of a sighting. And if one of them knows what they’re doing, they go ahead and tag them; get a bio-sig sample and turn it in.”

And there it was. Not everyone bounty hunters hunted were criminals, whose genetic material would’ve been kept in a database - these were simply people deemed of  _ interest _ . How utterly disturbing.

You held the Child in your arms, unheeding of the material bunching beneath them and the stitches that would need to be adjusted. Who would have seen them or you and known it was possibly a financial venture? 

Your skin crawled. 

Who had found your transmission, whatever transmission that was, in dead space and found your body in carbonite, suspended? Surrounded by the wreckage of a Separatist vessel, overgrowth consuming its history and - 

What had happened to your troops? To Reaper? Had he meant to secure you to put you on trial and then...never managed to? Had he died there? 

Why had he left you in the carbonite? 

And why was the Empire, what remained of it, hunting this child?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is me bullshitting my way through tracking fobs because we’re never given a clear explanation on how they work or what or why Mando thought they were totally in the clear in Sorgan and it has never stopped making me confused. We know now that the Empire likely never stopped tracking the kid, but Mando never questioned it, so I wanted to fill in the gap.
> 
> We'll get more into the Clone Wars, the aftermath and during, as well as troopers vs commandos, and what branches of discipline you focused on. I recognized KOTOR 1 and 2 as canon here, so there'll be references and such but don't worry you don't need to know about them to understand the chapters or anything. I'm also ignoring the sequel trilogies here, not even getting into them.
> 
> And I know you seem very sad, but in your defense, you have ptsd galore and trauma and no real way to express yourself through any other means than what you were taught which isn’t really working out for you since you have no support. Give yourself time.


	3. started from the bottom

It was mostly a straight shot to Sorgan. The Mandalorian didn't want to make extra stops or advertise his flight from Nevarro. It was slowly dawning on you what a risk he was taking. Perhaps he was simply bringing the Child to another buyer for a higher price - although he would find himself on the other end of whatever weapon you could scrape together if that was the case - and was stringing you along for the ride. More and more...it seemed unlikely. 

Was he just a regretful man? You couldn't be sure. It was so difficult, trying to parse through another's emotions without the Force. You couldn't see or hear the way you once had and instinct no longer responded to you. You had no idea what to think of him. You wished Reaper were here. 

The Child, at least, took it all in stride and enjoyed sitting in your lap, occasionally reaching out to tamper with the controls when you weren't watching him close enough. The Mandalorian never lost his temper with the Child. A sigh. A head shake. 

But never anger. Annoyance, exasperation, frustration...but he never yelled, never held out a hand or fist. If he had, broken jedi or no, you would have flown to the Child's defense. 

He was as uncertain of you as you were of him. He didn’t know what to make of you, but you caught his helmet tilted in your direction even when you weren’t holding the Child. You thought he was wondering if you were capable of what he’d seen from the Child. 

No, you wanted to tell him, dead things cannot do the things the living can. You were a walking corpse, not even allowed the dignity of peace, not even allowed to be one with the Force. 

The Child was a gift, though. Cleaning him, playing with hi,, feeding him, soaking in all the life he radiated - it was so warm around him. The Mandalorian was alive beneath his armor, you heard him breathe, but he wasn’t warm the way the Child was. 

Sometimes it still felt like you were in carbonite. Freezing and unaware, dead to the world. Before the Mandalorian had sprung you from your prison, you would sleep and wake, surprised to find that you could wake at all. 

Now, you dreamed of flashes of color, light, brief images that made no sense. You dreamed of Lokori. Of the Clone Wars. Of the steady chipping away at your self that you experienced. Jedi Sentinels were never meant to be generals. You sought out truth, exterminated pockets of shadow, investigated the dark corners of the galaxy. You’d been terrible at war strategy. Stealth, covert operations, sabotage - that was comfortable. You’d relied on Commander Reaper for strategy heavily throughout your entire campaign. 

But he was gone. All the clones were. Some had been sent to factories or farms to labor until their deaths. Others had been recruited into death squads - elite and terrifying - while stormtroopers became the new norm. Learning of their fate had been like slipping on ice, skidding without balance.

The Mandalorian had lent you a datapad once he figured out you were very, very behind on current events. He likely assumed you were a runaway slave of an Imperial who had taken an interest in your maybe-abilities. You let him. It was easier than the truth. The truth was something you were still coming to terms with. 

Headlines of the fall of the Republic shared similar themes: 

_ Jedi Order: Code of Betrayal?! _

_ To Avoid Capture, Jedi Kill Their Own - Massacre at the Temple _

_ Heroic Clones Discover Jedi Plot _

_ A Coup A Hundred Years in the Making _

_ Jedi Sorcery - Fact or Fiction _

The list went on. Squadrons, battleships, locations, command units - all were numbered and named. The dead jedi list was comparable to eavesdropping on gamblers pick out their favorite farthiers. In the media frenzy following Order 66, the names and faces of confirmed dead jedi were shown. 

There were hologames invented around hunting jedi.There were trading cards of the deceased and their actions in war. 

You were there too. Not as popular as say, Plo or Kenobi, but you were there. General of the 808th legion, a scrambler crew of sabotage and espionage experts, commandos that worked well together. Expertise: recon and sabotage. 

You’d been general of one of the few units that had no ARC troopers. Reaper had been a commando who worked well with your preferred style. 

Reaper. Flinch. Basketcase. Hardtack. Starling. Joker. Your unit, always bound at the hip no matter where you went - they were there. 

From your fragmented memory aboard the Seppie ship over Lokori, it had crashed, and Reaper had shot you in your side. You hadn’t even had time to sense something through the Force. He’d been crying. His hand had trembled when he raised his rifle at you - and then - you thought you might’ve said something else. But he’d rushed you, shoved you, froze you in carbonite. 

None of the jedi that had been listed KIA had ever been frozen for transport or taken into custody. The ones who went MIA had been forced to flee or go underground, but someone had reported you as killed in action. 

What had happened to your men? To Reaper? Why were you meant to be taken into custody? Who had lied about your status?

If the situation weren’t dire, if you could trust the Mandalorian, if you weren’t - dead, broken - wounded, you’d travel to Lokori yourself in search of answers. Someone had left a breadcrumb trail leading to you. Someone had meant to find you, or send help, but you had remained there as a relic. Who had found you? What happened to the 808th legion? Why had you been spared when the Order had burned? 

You dreamed of Reaper’s face, crying and tormented while he grimaced and bellowed at you. You could never make out the words. 

“When we get to Sorgan, we’ll need to lay low,” the Mandalorian said as a lush planet loomed before you. 

In your lap, the toddler picked at your nails, still brittle from your time in carbonite and deemed cosmetic by your former captors. He cooed and patted your hands, ears flapping. He watched you more than the Mandalorian. You wondered if he was trying to communicate through the Force. 

_ I’m sorry _ , you thought, freeing one hand to stroke an ear delicately,  _ I can’t feel anything _ . 

“Is Sorgan our final stop?” You’d never really been on the run before. Before the Wars, you’d often planet-hopped hunting down dark artifacts, investigating various dark-side sects or cults, seeking out truth in history. You had never actively been hunted this way. 

“For a while,” he said. He tilted his helmet, likely watching you and the Child peripherally. “We could use some time to make a long-term plan, maybe kick a few bushes and find out more about what’s going on.” 

Silence reigned for a short while. 

“You never did answer,” he said. 

“Answer what?” you asked. 

“About whether or not you can - feel the Force the way the kid can,” he stumbled a little over the concept aloud. 

“I used to. I can’t now,” you said briefly, hating the flare of pain in your breast. The Child turned in your lap to stare up at you, ears lifting in interest. It was easier to look into his wide, dark eyes and speak than it was to look at the cold, disinterested beskar-profile that was too like and unlike the clones’ helmets. 

“Why?” he asked. It was gentle probing. Even a touch scalded. 

“I don’t know.” Trauma, you thought. Or the carbonite did lasting damage. Or maybe someone had found you during your incapacitation and done something else to you. You had no answers. 

He turned back to the viewport as the craft made its preparations to descend. 

The trembling of the gunship as it broke through the planet’s atmosphere brought you back to your campaigns, with Starling flying. He’d loved flying. 

So gifted too. 

The Mandalorian perhaps didn’t have Starling’s love of flying, or his gentle touch, but it was obvious he was a capable pilot. From the carbon scoring on the Razor Crest, he’d been in his fair share of dogfights. 

Sorgan was beautiful, lush, and green and full of life. If you’d still been capable of feeling it, you imagine this place would’ve been strong with the Force. 

The Mandalorian stalked out of the cockpit and opened the ramp. He paused, waiting for you and the Child. You set the Child down so he had the chance to stretch his little legs on bare earth and grass. He cooed happily as you all made your way to, presumably, some kind of civilization, with the Mandalorian leading the way. 

The Child hopped in a puddle, touched reeds and grass stalks taller than him. 

It smelled like life here. Like Lokori. Earthy and green, shaded in every corner with life. Not at all like the dusty, arid air of Nevarro. 

You might not have the Force anymore, maybe never again, but you knew a thing or two about stealth and investigating. 

“Mandalorian,” you said, unsure what to call him and not familiar enough with his culture to assume you could ask for his name, “are we here to resupply or are we seeing how far the tether stretches?” 

“Both,” he replied. He wasn’t a man of many words, preferring body language. You hadn’t realized how heavily you’d relied on the Force in your everyday life, even brief interactions until now. You’d made a habit of studying him, or studying the Child so you could relearn what you’d once been good at. “We need to find out first if they’ll send more hunters now that they’ve lost the kid. And you. The way we do that is being prepared and unattached to a place, and a place like Sorgan? It’s ideal for what we need.” 

You nodded. “If they want him badly enough to chase him to a place like Sorgan…”

“Then they’re serious and they’re not going to let this go.” 

You continued on for some time, until the Child whined at your feet and you lifted him to the sling you’d fashioned from an old blanket. He slumped into it, nestled in your front. You smelled food, something like meat cooking, before you saw anything. 

It was a patchy sort of town, built from hardened reeds and sticks native to the planet. People sold wares - mostly old droid parts, baskets and pottery, clothing and shoes, and freshly cooked foods. The Mandalorian headed for a large dome-like structure that had no door. Someone listed outside it, drinking something bright blue from an old bottle. 

A cantina. 

How many times had you once sought information in bars? Something in you almost relaxed. You knew how to do this, maybe not as you once did, maybe never as good as you’d once been, but you could learn. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at you, being your own hype-man. proud of you.


End file.
